“If I act as if I won, maybe that will convince people I did, and then President Peres will give me the nod in forming a government.”

As the AP photographer, Sebastian Scheiner, noted dryly in his caption:

She delivered a victory speech and has been actively pursuing potential coalition partners. But in reality, Livni’s only concrete chance of being in the government is in a power-sharing arrangement with her rival.

Rather odious comparison and over-the-top tzipi-bashing to compare her victory fling to “…behaving in the same honor-shame paradigm that had Hamas celebrate its victory over Israel in Operation Cast Lead.” Certainly didn’t hear the likes of this when Bibi gave his resounding victory speech a few hours after the election. Also didn’t hear any guns being fired in the air at the party in Tel Aviv.

you’re right. it’s inappropriate. i hardly want to compare Livni with Hamas, just to point out the incongruous nature of this behavior in terms of “reality”. what struck me about this case was how long after the events this occurred, so in some senses it’s got to be considered pre-meditated rather than instant response. maybe we can take both bibi’s response and tzipi’s as examples of the middle-easternization of israeli politics. or maybe, on this one, i’m just way off.

Not being defeated is a victory. And even being defeated is not a failure – Ségolène Royal never actually admitted that she lost the presidential election, and even less her internal party’s leadership one. How did Hillary do?
Behave like a winner and you’ll be thought of as a winner.
Well, fools some of the people some of the time.

tzipi is an utter failure. she has never done anything to deserve being FM, let alone PM. she is a nobody, an empty suit.

if such a person does victory parties, she does deserve a comparison with the arabs/pals in this specific context. nobody with half a brain would interpret your comparison to be to the barbarism of hamas.

if PM, however, tzipi is liable to cause as much pain to israel as hamas to the pals, although not in terms of oppression and murder, but in terms of putting its existence in peril.

Well, Kadima did lead the popular vote and get the most seats. That’s an actual victory of sorts, so it’s not really the same as Hamas claiming it defeated Israel. The real losers in this election were Labor and Meretz. To be sure, Kadima lost ground too, disguised by the inclusion of Gil.

Well, Kadima did lead the popular vote and get the most seats. That’s an actual victory of sorts, so it’s not really the same as Hamas claiming it defeated Israel.

not very accurate.

1. in tzipi’s case, “of sorts” is the key term. in israel’s coalition govt being the largest party counts only if you can come up with 61 MKs; if not, it does not mean much and it certainly did not justify a party and claims that she must be allowed to form the govt, part, after she failed in better circumstances.

2. in fact, hamas had a better claim to victory. it refrained to fight and saved itself and none of the israeli objectives were achieved. it’s precisely because the benefits from the war were eroding — no shalit, no stop to the rockets, pressure to open the crosspoints and zilch on int’l promises to stop the weapons — that the israeli govt has no strategic vision, does not dare fighting to win, and is politically fractious and corrupt. it also managed to annoy the egyptians, although I don’t much care about that, they are not trustworthy.

The real losers in this election were Labor and Meretz. To be sure, Kadima lost ground too, disguised by the inclusion of Gil.

ah, but it’s kadima’s campaign strategy that contributed to the disappearance of the left. in a way it both enlarged the right and reduced the left.

unfortunately kadima can have a victory of sorts: both netanyahu and liberman are big talkers, but that’s all they are. none of them followed through their ideologies and chickened out whenever push came to shove. some of it caused by int’l pressure and the alibama hussein incompetent admin, but not all. I predict a unity govt which is not gonna be good for israel and it’ll be cowardly and either chaotic or paralyzed and certainly corrupt.

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Fatal Attraction: The shared antichrist of the Global Progressive Left and Jihad Richard Landes, Boston University, History Department From: The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel, edited by Read More »